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Iran Involved in Plot to Assassinate Jews in Sweden

A picture distributed by Swedish Radio shows the Iranian couple who were deported in 2022.
A picture distributed by Swedish Radio shows the Iranian couple who were deported in 2022.
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Iran Involved in Plot to Assassinate Jews in Sweden

A picture distributed by Swedish Radio shows the Iranian couple who were deported in 2022.
A picture distributed by Swedish Radio shows the Iranian couple who were deported in 2022.

Swedish Radio (SR) revealed on Tuesday that an Iranian man and woman working for Iranian intelligence services were deported to their country in 2022 on charges of planning to assassinate Jews in Sweden.
Mahdi Ramezani and Fereshteh Sanaeifarid were arrested in April 2021, on the outskirts of Stockholm, on suspicion of conspiring to commit a terrorist crime, according to AFP, quoting the Swedish media.
An investigation conducted by Swedish Radio showed that the couple, who obtained asylum in 2017 after pretending to be Afghan refugees, were deported to Iran because they posed a threat to national security.
Due to a lack of evidence, the two were never charged but were reportedly expelled from the country in 2022 for posing a security risk.
“We have strong belief that they were here on a mission on behalf of Iran. They were seen here in Sweden as a very severe security threat. And that’s the reason why they were expelled, even if we couldn’t prosecute them,” deputy chief prosecutor Hans Ihrman told the broadcaster.
No official information was revealed about the two individuals. But SR cited sources saying that they were working on behalf of the IRGC and reportedly identified three different targets, gathering addresses and photographs.
One of the suspected targets was believed to be Aron Verstandig, Chair of the Official Council of Swedish Jewish communities, who told SR that he had received a call from the Swedish Security Service in 2021, informing him that he was believed to be at risk.
He said: “They basically told me that you have been named as one of the targets of a possible terror crime that involves murder.”
The radio station indicated that the two Iranians deny the accusations. There was no comment from the Iranian authorities.
Relations between Sweden and Iran witnessed a crisis after a Swedish court issued a life imprisonment sentence against Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian prison official, for his involvement in mass executions of prisoners, ordered by Tehran in 1988.
In response to Nouri’s trial, Iran detained many Swedish citizens.

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US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
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US Agency Focused on Foreign Disinformation Shuts Down

The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP
The State Department's Global Engagement Center has faced scrutiny and criticism from Republican lawmakers and Elon Musk. Mandel NGAN / AFP

A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Republican criticism.
The Global Engagement Center, a State Department unit established in 2016, shuttered on Monday at a time when officials and experts tracking propaganda have been warning of the risk of disinformation campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China, AFP reported.
"The State Department has consulted with Congress regarding next steps," it said in a statement when asked what would happen to the GEC's staff and its ongoing projects following the shutdown.
The GEC had an annual budget of $61 million and a staff of around 120. Its closing leaves the State Department without a dedicated office for tracking and countering disinformation from US rivals for the first time in eight years.
A measure to extend funding for the center was stripped out of the final version of the bipartisan federal spending bill that passed through the US Congress last week.
The GEC has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans.
It also came under fire from Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being the "worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation" and called the agency a "threat to our democracy."
The GEC's leaders have pushed back on those views, calling their work crucial to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.
Musk had loudly objected to the original budget bill that would have kept GEC funding, though without singling out the center. The billionaire is an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump and has been tapped to run the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), tasked with reducing government spending.
In June, James Rubin, special envoy and coordinator for the GEC, announced the launch of a multinational group based in Warsaw to counter Russian disinformation on the war in neighboring Ukraine.
The State Department said the initiative, known as the Ukraine Communications Group, would bring together partner governments to coordinate messaging, promote accurate reporting of the war and expose Kremlin information manipulation.
In a report last year, the GEC warned that China was spending billions of dollars globally to spread disinformation and threatening to cause a "sharp contraction" in freedom of speech around the world.